


the corner of my memory, a brown piano settled on one side.

by sakuyamons



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, nothing graphic but it's lampshaded so, tw for asuka's past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 17:04:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19705687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuyamons/pseuds/sakuyamons
Summary: The piano belonged to her earliest memories -- and even before that, probably.Asuka and the different meanings the piano had through her life.





	the corner of my memory, a brown piano settled on one side.

**Author's Note:**

> more than a fic this a elaborate headcanon that i made instead of rewatching eva on netflix. idk anything about instruments so mistakes might have happened. Hope you guys enjoy it!

The piano belongs to one of her earliest memories -- and even before that, probably.

Her mother wasn’t just an incredibly smart woman and a renamed scientist, she was also an incredibly skilled pianist. Asuka has sparse memories about her mother -- and happy ones even less, but her playing the piano is one of them. It wasn’t a mother-daughter activity per se, but Asuka enjoyed the background music of the piano while playing with her dolls or to have it as a lullaby to help her sleep.

And overall she enjoyed how her mother looked while playing it, sometimes she’d drop whatever she was doing to just look at her; she looked totally calm and concentrated and even more importantly, she looked _happy_. With her long, blonde hair and her blue eyes, Asuka thought she looked a lot like the princess from the books she used to read.

“Asuka.” Her mother smiles at her, probably noticing that she had spent a while looking at her “Come here, sweetheart.”

Asuka nods and eventually she finds herself sitting on her mother’s lap as she plays the piano and Asuka can get a better view on how her mother’s hands move around with elegance across the instrument and Asuka remembers being impressed and so in love with it. Her mother switches to a different song after a bridge, one with a slower tone and a melody that felt like someone was cradling her to sleep , she lets out a yawn and she looks up to her mother and receives a kiss on the forehead as her mother continued playing.

“I made this song around the time I found out I was pregnant with you.” She tells her “You’d start kicking as soon you heard the first note.”

“You make songs, mama?”

“Sometimes, when I have time.” Which isn’t a lot these days “And inspiration plays a role as well.”

“Mama, I wanna play it.” She says, and she means it “I’ll make a song for you! I’ll have time and ins….inspi...inspiration!”

Her mother laughs delighted and she presses another kiss to her forehead. She was glowing at the suggestion, as if it was something she had wanted to do a long time ago.

“Well, first you have to make sure the piano is on tune. Nobody likes a piano out of tune, and it might hurt the instrument, but this is tuned already so we don’t worry about that. Then you have to get familiar with the different ones the piano gives you, you got…”

The piano not only meant memories, it meant beginnings, comfort, home. It was synonymous with lullabies and falling asleep on her mother’s arms after a lesson. The piano was irremediably linked to her mother and how she shone whenever she played it for the pleasure of them both.

The piano is the only door regarding her mother that is not closed and locked.

* * *

The piano means determination.

Determination to demand a piano in her new home despite her father and step-mother not being musically inclined, determination to continue teaching herself her instrument despite her mother is gone and there is nobody else that could teach her. Her mother barely had time to teach her the basics, so it was up to her to learn the rest.

The piano is determination to shut her thoughts after everything that has happened, it’s the melodies that she learns while her father and stepmother discuss over God knows what -- probably her, not that she cares. She is only five but she is pretty sure she doesn’t feel anything towards her father, she wishes there was at least hate, but there is just emptiness.

But the determination applies to the unit-02 too.

The first synchronization attempts had gone quite terribly, but the trauma was still fresh so the scientists let it pass. Now that a whole year had passed, it had greatly improved, but it could be better, and she wouldn’t let anyone be a better pilot than her. She was Germany’s pride if she succeeded, if she failed then she was less than nothing.

Asuka discovered that synchronization went better whenever she had the piano in mind -- not necessarily thinking of playing it, but just thinking about it. Something about the Eva felt warmer if she did, it was probably her imagination since there was no way this robot had feelings. But she supposed it didn’t hurt to do it if it gave successful results.

“You’re good with the piano. I’ve heard you play” Her step-mother says to her, it’s just the two of them alone at the house while Father is still at NERV Germany to research the Eva project “Did your mother teach you?”  


“My mother taught me the very basics, the rest I’m teaching myself.” She replies, and it’s not like her mother is a topic brought upon this house (and she doesn’t feel like talking about her with any of these people) but she appreciates that her step-mother actually refers to her by her name. Even if it’s guilt, it’s better than her father’s vague  _ ‘she’  _ and  _ ‘her’ _ .

“Very impressive.” Her stepmother says “You’re a very impressive child, Asuka.”

She still doesn’t fully like the woman, but she won’t mind a compliment.

* * *

As she grows up, piano means identity.

It might be as important to her as a person as piloting the Evangelion is, for different reasons. Her pilot self is who she wants to be; skilled, prideful, needed. Her piano self is way more quiet, reserved and a bit melancholic, but it is a good instrument to let go of frustrations. She’s very aware that she might be a  _ bit  _ fucked up, so she is thankful for the instrument because she might have done something she regrets otherwise.

It’s good for her self-esteem too, she doesn’t do recitals often but she lives for the applause of the public, being able to perform geniuses whose art is longer than life is a wonderful feeling. Even if she lives in a world whose arts are constantly underpaid to cover for military costs that she is also part of.

Her two sides clash constantly, she isn’t surprised, she isn’t an easy person.

Starting to compose her own songs is a challenge as well, to add to the Evangelion and her university life when a regular kid would be worried with high school. Inspiration comes and goes when it comes to make her first solo compositions, she isn’t sure of what she wants it to sound like, but she read somewhere that to start compositions have to start with something personal and it is driving her crazy. Expressing herself through her music but that would mean opening doors that have been closed years ago, and she doesn’t want to see it. She isn’t particularly close to another musician either, so it is pretty much her and herself against this.  


She starts with an heroic piece, almost like a war hymn, then she stops midway and --

“This shit is difficult” She says to no one in particular, everyone knows better than bothering her when she’s trying to play with the piano. She decides to drop it and just practice something else instead, maybe one day, when it is safe to open the doors that she has been trying so hard to keep closed as the years pass, it will get easier to do a self-composition.

They tell her that she must go to Japan soon -- probably in a couple months, there is no way she’d finish her song on time. The idea bothers her, and even if she hates most (if not all) people in here, this was still her home. She doesn’t even know if she can obtain a keyboard in Japan (if NERV even allows it), she speaks it fluently but she still struggles with kanji and  _ ugh. _

This instrument might have been for her longer than most adult figures in her life..

She’s gonna miss it.

* * *

She hears idiot Shinji playing cello once.

She doesn’t know where Misato is -- probably being hungover, she doesn’t really care. But she is impressed by how the idiot plays (or that he plays at all), she probably should let him know of her presence, but she hated when people interrupted her, so it gives Shinji the same courtesy.  


“Not bad.” She says once he’s finished, and the idiot looked startled “Not bad at all.”

“W-What do you mean?”

“The cello, idiot.” She says, irritated “Amateur?”  


“Sort of..”

She puts her hands on her hips and examines Shinji from head to toe, she knows he liked to listen to classical music (she likes to play it, but not necessarily _ listen  _ to it, rock fits her tastes better) and she is pretty sure he mentioned the cello before. But mentioning it and actually playing it are different things, funny, she never imagined they’d have things in common such as instruments.  


“There’s potential.” She shrugs “You’ll get better if you keep practicing.”

“A-Asuka, you play cello too?”

  
“No.” She shakes her head “But I play the piano.”

Shinji blinks twice and just stares at her, and he looks surprised. She wants to hit him with his cello, why does he look so surprised that she can play the piano? It’s not like he (or anyone at this country, to be honest) knows anything about her.  


“That’s impressive.” He says, and Asuka tries her best to hide her blushing “Have to played it since you arrived here?”

“Not really.” As if this place with empty cans of beer everywhere would be a good place to have a keyboard, let alone a piano “I haven’t had the time to actually research keyboards, they’re easier to carry than pianos.”

“Oh...I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“That you can’t play your instrument.” And the comment totally caught her off guard “Y-You look pretty happy when you talk about it.”

She feels that her face is getting even more red and thinks that she should run away now, she doesn’t know why this idiot makes her this flustered. But running means defeat.  


“Yeah, it’s something I enjoy.”

“I-If you want, it would be nice to hear you playing it.”  


This is the first time that someone has actually shown proper interest in her musical talent since...a while.

She decides to play it nicely.

“Maybe one day I will.”

The day never arrives, however.

* * *

The piano was tainted now.

The angel had broken her.

She had always associated the piano with happy memories, memories of her mother as the way she should be remembered, memories of herself actually finding peace and identity through the instrument even if only for a couple hours, and all of that had been ruined now.

The angel had showed her a scenario with her mother playing the piano -- as she had done countless times before things went downhill. But as Asuka attempted to get closer to the woman, the once peaceful sounds became more violent and wrong -- at this point she was almost just hitting the instrument and…

_ ‘Please stop.’  _ She wants to say, both to her mother and the angel _ ‘Please don’t ruin this -- please don’t ruin this for me ibegyou.’ _

As Asuka comes closer, she realizes her mother is wearing her hospital clothes and she wants to scream and run but she can’t because this is all her mind is now. She -- she’s pretty sure that mother is attempting to play Mozart’s requiem and she feels four again  _ ‘mom, it’s me’ _ she wants at scream at her _ ‘it’s Asuka, your  _ **_fucking_ ** _ child’. _ But her voice isn’t letting her, all that she can do is brace herself for what is coming next -- and she knows she will never be ready.

The doll that has been haunting her for a decade is sitting on her mother’s laps and her mother is smiling at it with twisted adoration as the Requiem is playing. She can’t even scream or cry -- her tears have dried and her brain is going into short circuit and she can only beg to be left alone. They have destroyed her already and she is begging at this point  _ ‘pleaseleavemealone’. _

“You love the piano, don’t you Asuka?” Her mother cooes to the doll “You’ll be a pianist like your mom, will you?”

“Mom.” Asuka puts her hand on the woman's shoulder -- her voice is shaking and she feels like she’s four and she is just so damn powerless and this situation isn't _real_ , but she has to try regardless “Mom, please loo--”

She doesn’t finish her sentence.

The doll’s head falls out her mother’s lap.

There is blood in the keyboard.

She screams.

* * *

She doesn’t know where she is, and she doesn’t really care.

She doesn’t care about anything.

She is in a tub, and is not really sure how she ended up here, but then again -- it matters not. All that she knows is that she lost against the angel, she got rescued by the idiot and the doll, every demon that she tried to keep hidden inside of her had come to the surface and she has been broken beyond imagination.

She laughs humorlessly.

“No...I have always been like this.”

She hears the steps of someone coming, it is probably NERV. She is useless for them now, they will probably intern her and put the replacement in Unit 02 as soon as they step through that door. It’s okay, she always knew that this would happen if she failed.

There’s little use to a piano out of tune, after all.


End file.
